This photograph was taken in the morning of January 23, 2019 on US Highway 70 between Roswell, New Mexico and Portales, New Mexico in what is now the remains of Kenna, New Mexico. The stark landscape with the empty house sitting on the knoll caught my eye. It was a very cold day.
Reflections of a Poet
Reflection on a Photograph Entitled “Once a Home”
By the Photographer David Douglas
(For David)
Reflection on a Photograph Entitled “Once a Home”
By the Photographer David Douglas
(For David)
An old house, long abandoned,
sits in the middle of
a field long neglected.
Together they share
an atmosphere of sadness and melancholy,
perhaps even despair.
It has been years since the old house
has heard the sound of children’s laughter,
and longer still
since the field
felt the plow’s insistence
and was pregnant with its bounty.
The house must have life
teeming within its walls
before it can become a home,
and the field its seed
that in time the harvest brings.
But for now,
they are frozen in the lens
of the photographer’s camera,
that we may see more clearly
one point in time.
“Reflection on a Photograph Entitled ‘Once a Home’ by the Photographer David Douglas,” Copyright© 2019 by John D. Call